Wire and cable are typically manufactured in the form of spools or coils of a predetermined number of lineal feet. Before the wire is used or even shipped to market, it is often necessary to cut the wire from the coil into shorter strips also of a predetermined linear length. In addition, in order to transform the wire from the curvilinear shape it assumes as a result of being coiled, an apparatus is often provided which straightens the wire and alleviates any radial forces tending to twist the wire. Straightened wire can then be supplied to a cutting apparatus to make the aforementioned strips of relatively short length.
In order to automate the cutting process, and to optimize the automated cutting process, it is necessary to provide a mechanism which provides the cutter with a signal to make each cut at the appropriate time. The cutter is often a blade which oscillates up and down to partially cut through the wire. A wiper blade is then provided to break the wire away from the stock. Such an operation is disclosed in pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/627,935, assigned to the present assignee.
This sensing or release mechanism is often provided in the form of a movable member which abuts the leading edge of the wire being pulled from the feed coil and which is accordingly moved in a axial direction due to the force of the moving wire. This forces the member to pass a sensor which detects the movement and then sends a signal to the cutting mechanism to make the next cut. After each cut, a bracket holding the wire strip in place is released which allows the cut strip to drop due to gravity and be carried away for further processing. After each cut, the coil continues to feed wire to the cutting apparatus which again allows the wire to abut the movable member and pass the sensor to provide the next signal to the cutting apparatus.
Although such systems reliably provide signals to the cutting mechanism, they often provide a relatively unwielding apparatus when it is necessary to change any of the parameters of the given cut. For example, if the length of wire strip to be manufactured is to be changed, the only way to make this adjustment is to stop the feed roll, and adjust the position of the movable member within the release assembly. This requires the operator to release the clamping assembly holding the movable member in place, to move the member, and to retighten the clamp assembly. It is only after this substantial downtime period that operation of the feed roll can then begin again. Moreover, if the gauge of the wire cable being processed varies over time, the biasing mechanism for biasing the assembly back toward the feed roll after each cut to thereby reset the sensor, may not be sufficiently strong to force a heavy-gauge wire back toward the feed roll. The resulting strips cut from the machine will thereby be produced tending to have a longer than desired length.
In addition, the speed at which the cutting apparatus can make its cuts, is limited by the pace at which the release assembly is reset after each cut. This is in part dependent on the strength of the biasing mechanism, and is also dependent on the distance the movable member is required to travel before tripping the sensor. The longer the distance, the longer the time required for resetting the release assembly. Since time is money, money is necessarily lost if the reset time is not minimized.